Marine Coatings Engineer

N4 Solutions, LLC offers our public and private sector clients the collective intellectual knowledge, expertise, and experience of our company and associates to help our customers evaluate, collaborate, innovate, and create business, technology, and scientific solutions that enable them to accomplish their mission and achieve organizational objectives. With the growth of the company, we are seeking a highly motivated and hard‑working coatings engineering professional to join our team.

The successful candidate will work in a high‑paced and rewarding work environment.

The Marine Coatings Engineer will perform hands‑on scientific and engineering work supporting NRL marine coatings science and technology research. The position focuses on coating formulation, surface‑treatment development, laboratory and environmental testing, surface preparation, application and removal processes, thermal spray, coating inspection, data analysis, and field evaluation of protective coating systems for Navy and maritime platforms.

• Conduct fundamental and applied research on marine coating systems and surface treatments for Navy ships, submarines, marine structures, aircraft, and related war fighting platforms.
• Formulate, refine, and evaluate coating systems using resins, pigments, and other coating constituents for underwater hulls, topside surfaces, non‑skid areas, bilges, rudders, tanks, voids, and other Navy applications.
• Develop and evaluate multifunctional coatings, including surface‑tolerant, anti-fouling, rapid‑cure, solvent‑free, self‑inspecting, high‑durability, and low‑solar‑absorbance coating technologies.
• Develop and test surface treatments, including thermal spray and other surface‑modification or enhancement approaches, to improve corrosion resistance, durability, maintainability, and service life.
• Design and execute laboratory test plans and experimental procedures to evaluate coating physical properties and performance under natural seawater exposure, atmospheric conditions, environmental chambers, simulated flow environments, and other Navy‑relevant conditions.
• Evaluate coating performance under controlled variations in temperature, humidity, solar exposure, wear, durability, coefficient of friction, acoustic damping, and other application‑specific performance conditions identified by the test plan.
• Prepare test specimens, panels, substrates, and representative components for coating and surface‑treatment evaluation using defined surface‑preparation and application procedures.
• Develop, evaluate, and improve techniques, equipment, and processes for surface preparation, coating application, coating inspection, coating removal, and related maintenance activities.
• Investigate and test technologies that improve autonomy or automation in the application and removal of hull treatments, including process control, sensing, inspection, repeatability, and performance verification.
• Design and execute comparative studies of candidate coating systems and surface treatments to quantify degradation, durability, adhesion/performance trends, and environmental response over time.
• Collect, manage, analyze, and interpret experimental data to compare candidate technologies, identify degradation mechanisms and performance trends, and support technically defensible conclusions.
• Use analytical, statistical, modeling, and data‑visualization tools to evaluate coating performance and translate test data into engineering findings, plots, reports, and recommendations.
• Perform or support coating inspections, surface‑condition assessments, and post‑exposure examinations to document coating condition, defects, wear, degradation, and failure characteristics.
• Support development and evaluation of test fixtures,…